


Come Undone

by AngelicSentinel



Series: i carry your heart [3]
Category: Magic Kaito, 名探偵コナン | Detective Conan | Case Closed
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Injury, M/M, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-27
Updated: 2018-10-17
Packaged: 2018-11-19 21:50:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,105
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11322438
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AngelicSentinel/pseuds/AngelicSentinel
Summary: the one where soulmates share extreme physical sensation — if one gets hurt, the other gets hurt, and etc.





	1. Kaito

Kaito sits at Aoko’s table, picking at the contents of his plate. Nausea churns his stomach, and not because of his upcoming heist. No, there’s something on the air, a bitter taste on the wind, something dark and foreboding reaching down his throat, and taking, taking, taking.

He’s tried to play it off, force it down, ignore it entirely, but it lingers, turning his stomach and him off his food. It’s nothing he ate, just a feeling, all-encompassing. He can’t take it anymore. He won’t be able to finish his meal. He gets up to put his plate away, when a phantom pain bursts into being on the back of his skull, sharp and forceful and devastating.

It knocks him senseless, and he trips on his own feet, one toe catching a heel, slippers askew, and falls, hitting his jaw so hard on the floor that it pops, the plate falling out of his hands and shattering in pieces. He clutches at his head, pulling his hand down to look at it, but there’s no blood. Just an intense pain that lingers, and blood on his lip. Kaito licks the copper away, the taste of a 100 yen coin sharp on his tongue.

“Kaito!” Aoko cries out, ignoring the bone white shards of porcelain and kneeling at his side. “What happened?”

“I don’t know,” he says, bewildered, looking at his hand. No blood.

That’s when the pain hits. Violent, intense. His heart near explodes out of his chest. He can’t help but scream as his bones crack and melt and shift. He curls up on the sharp shards, uncaring that they cut into his skin. Aoko’s voice fades into white noise as he shivers, trying to form as small of a target as possible, but there’s no escaping this pain, it’s inside him, eating him alive, tearing him to shreds, crumbling the marrow of his bones until they’re so much ash.

The darkness takes him, friendly as an old lover, easing the pain.

-

Kaito wakes up in a panic with people surrounding him, thrashing. “Kaito!” A voice calls out, Aoko’s voice, a hand surrounding his own, Aoko’s hand, and that’s enough to calm him down, to ground him, to anchor him, to see the fluorescent lights above and the strong smell of antiseptic and bleach and cleaner.

“What happened?” he wonders. “Where am I?”

“You’re in the hospital, Kaito,” Aoko says. “It was bad. Really bad,” she whispers.

He rubs at his heart.

“Kuroba-san?” the doctor says, her clipboard out. He turns his head, though it takes all his energy. He feels worn, like an old leather shoe dry-rotted from being left out in the sun. “You suffered from cardiopulmonary arrest and were clinically dead for about thirty seconds, but we managed to revive you. How are you feeling?”

Kaito furrows his brow, narrows his eyes, leaning forward, confused and almost unable to comprehend. “What?” he says through the haze. What kind of stupid question is that? The world is spinning and his hand goes to his head, only to wince as he touches the phantom pain from before, vibrantly aching.

“We just have a few questions.”

She goes over them with Kaito. Some of them he understands, like “Have you ever felt this level of pain before?” (“No.”) but some of them are a little bizarre, like, "Has anyone ever passed out in your vicinity as a result of your injuries?” (“No.”) and, “Do you feel hollow, like your heart has been ripped from your chest?” (Also “No,” though his heart is aching something fierce from the total shutdown of his lungs and heart.)

Then the doctor clears her throat. “Your loss of consciousness was psychosomatic.”

Kaito frowns. “It wasn’t all in my head.” Where is she going with this?

“Of course not! The pain you felt was very real. It just didn’t belong to you,” the doctor states. “Your prognosis is agrasymbolodynia. It’s hard to make a differential diagnosis, especially since there appears to be no medical cause for the extreme pain you were in, but we are almost certain that is what you have.”

“‘Agra’ the what now? In Japanese?” He’s still fuzzy, and he hopes that whatever this is isn’t permanent.

“Agrasymbolodynia. The sudden onset of severe pain caused by—” she pauses, uncomfortable look on her face.

“Well, what?” Kaito says, annoyed. If it’s terminal or whatever, she should just get it out already. All this pussyfooting around just makes it worse.

She licks her lips, clears her throat. “Also known as the Soulmate Echo. Congratulations, you have a soulmate. We’re not able to make a hundred percent confirmation, but it’s the only thing that makes sense.”

“What? Not Aoko?” Not that he wants her to be in terrible, terrible pain, and nothing like whatever it was that put him in the hospital, but he always thought they would…

Aoko looks down. The doctor shakes her head. “I’m sorry. We don't know. We haven’t received word of any patients with your exact symptoms. If you’d like, we can register your symptoms in the AS database in case anyone comes looking. They are certainly unique.”

And if he ever got seriously hurt as Kid? Flashing sign pointing to his identity. Kaito shakes his head. “Nah. I’ll pass.”

“Considering you don’t have the symptoms of a broken bond, we can definitively state your soulmate is still alive. It might help in finding them. It’s a rare opportunity, Kuroba-san. Not everyone gets a chance to find their soulmate. That’s why the Agrasymbolodynia Database was set up.”

“It’ll bring me nothing but trouble. Besides, who needs a soulmate anyway?” Kaito scoffs. But inside he’s reeling.

See, soulmates are wonderfully rare. So very very rare. Everyone has the potential to meet one, but because of the way soulmates are found, it rarely ever happens.

Life-threatening pain.

“The Beautifully Cursed,” they call them. The ones who’ve been near death and survived to find their match.

Whole masochistic cults center around the idea, populated by the lonely and the desperate. Death seekers they call them, ones who do not want to wait to find their match, so they fling themselves headlong into death. Extreme sports, peacekeeping organizations, armed forces, emergency services—these too, often have more applicants than they need. Any place with a higher chance of brushes with death.

Statistically speaking, anthropological studies of these cults have indicated people in these niche groups are no more likely to find their soulmate than the population as a whole. The same goes for those in dangerous occupations.

So Kaito is at loss for how he’s supposed to deal with this. The pain is mostly gone, settled into a bone-deep ache, the very same pain his supposed soulmate is dealing with at the moment. What was it, Kaito wonders, and how are they even alive?

He has no answers, and so he ceases to think about it. There’s nothing he can do, no way to figure it out as it is, so he buries it in his mind. He forgets about it for a while.

At least until he’s home alone one day. It’s not consistent, not a constant unending fire like the first time. It comes in pulses, irregularly timed.  But _oh_ , how it hurts. It’s like an earthquake, the world shaking underneath his feet in shocks and aftershocks. He should probably call an ambulance, but it’s too much for him to even stand. Kaito falls to his knees, one hand against the wall, one hand over his heart, waiting for it to end.

When it’s over, he feels stretched out, new, almost like he’s been reborn. Everything is tender to the touch, and his bones hurt. He stands on shaky legs, makes his way to his bed, curls under the covers and pulls them over his head, nothing left but a residual ache. But the pain leaves him exhausted.

What if it happens during a heist? There’s nothing with symptoms like this, he’s looked and looked and looked. He turns it over in his mind, thoughts and strategies and he’s still no closer to a solution than he was before.

Unfortunately for him, the reprieve is short. In less than an hour, it hits him again, stronger this time. He thought it was painful before, but it has nothing on this.

It’s as excruciating as the first time; his bones are cracking and moving and shifting—he can almost feel them rolling underneath his skin. He nearly loses his mind to the pain, certain that his screams can be heard across Tokyo.

And then it’s over.

Who the hell is his soulmate?

And why the hell does this keep happening?

-

It happens again as he and Aoko are in the middle of Beika Ward on a lazy weekend day.

This time it’s his left side, and he recognizes the source this time. No mysterious soul-shattering pain.

Gunshot wound. It’s a gunshot wound. He knows those. In any other case he might be concerned, but this is familiar. He has no problems moving through it, but as time passes, he starts feeling faint. Kaito knows the dizziness associated with blood loss. He drops his ice cream cone, nearly falls over but for Aoko’s steadying presence as she ducks underneath his arm. She walks him to the edge of a fountain, leans his body down so he’s laying on the cold brick.

“Kaito?” Aoko asks, holding on to him, keeping him steady, grounded. “Breathe with Aoko,” she says, taking slow deliberate breaths, in and out.

He does, and the world looks a little less grey. “Gunshot,” he coughs out. But the world is still spinning, even as he’s still.

She’s wringing her hands, and he wishes he had an answer for her. He’s so tired, breathing hard, sweating. The world is spinning, blurring.

“Aoko…If I don’t…If I,” he begins, but it’s so hard to speak. What if he dies with things left unfinished between them? He’s been reading. Sometimes a soul dies and takes the other half of the soul with them because it’s just too much for even two minds to handle.

“Shh, Kaito,” she says. Aoko is sitting next to him, dabbing his head with a wet cloth. It helps.

“Kid…Aoko, listen,” he tries again. He doesn’t know what he’s going to do. Tell her? Ask her to make sure her father finds those responsible for his father’s accident, he doesn’t know. He has to tell her.

But she shakes her head. “Shhh, it will be fine, Kaito. You’ll see,” Aoko says, but she’s forcing a smile, and her hand is already on her phone, ringing for an ambulance.

And then the world dims, and the last words on his lips are an apology. “I’m sorry, I—”

-

Much to Kaito’s surprise, he does wake. In a hospital again, no less. But he’s not alone, rhythmic breathing sounding throughout the room. He turns his head, expecting to see Aoko, or Jii, or his mother, but it’s just a little boy, his left side swathed in…bandages. Asleep or unconscious, he can’t tell.

Kaito touches his own left side. Still tender. But he can sit up just fine, and he moves from the bed, putting shaky feet on the ground. He can walk—there’s no actual physical injury—but he feels like he shouldn’t be able to move. He wants a closer look.

The boy looks familiar, but he can’t place him. He stares at him for a long time with bleary, blurry eyes. His head is still foggy from blood loss, and he can’t think clearly.

A door opening has him turning.

A woman who looks a little like Aoko steps through the door. He blinks, squeezing his eyes, getting all the sleep out of them.

“Oh!” the woman says. No, too young. Teenager? Approximately his age? Another few blinks and he finally places her. The ship. The lodge. The detective’s daughter. Mōri Ran. Which means he’s that kid. He turns back to the bed. Oh. “I’m sorry for disturbing you. I’ll leave.”

“No, stay,” Kaito finds himself saying. “I was just—” and he gestures between him and the kid. He can’t even remember his name. The only reason he remembers hers is because he disguised as her for a short time and had to learn to respond to it. Foreign, he thinks. Something Conan, maybe?

“I understand,” she says, voice quiet. “The doctors say you—that you’re—the doctors say—”

“Soulmates?” Kaito finishes wryly. She can’t seem to get it out.

“Yes,” she says. “You came in at the same time as he did, with the same symptoms. That means that he nearly—”

Kaito’s not cruel enough to finish that statement. This is the fourth time this kid has almost died. Mōri must be pulling her hair out with worry. But what could have caused such intense pain the first time he was hospitalized? And how did the boy survive it?

“You look like him,” she says suddenly.

Kaito glances over at the bed. “A little, I guess.” In a sense. Like broad painted strokes in the dark, or an artist who changed their style over time.

And she smiles, but it’s sad. “Take care of him, please. Heaven knows he needs all the help he can get.”

“He’s a handful?” Kaito asks.

“You have no idea,” she says. “I’m always running after him, it seems.”

Kaito can believe it. “I’ll do my best. Kuroba Kaito,” he says.

“Mōri Ran,” she says.

“For a little guy, he sure gets into a lot of trouble, doesn’t he?” Kaito says. “I’m tired of waking up in the hospital,” he tries to joke.

“What do you mean?” she asks.

So he tells her about the strange all over pain that happened twice over, the deep ache that lingered, the bump on the head. She’s shocked by it; no, deeply disturbed, her eyes trained on the small unmoving form under the sheet.

“You don’t remember that?” he asks.

“The first was the night he came to us,” she says, and her face is lined with deep concern. “The same night, just hours before…” she trails off, then after a long pause lets out a pained “Oh!” and puts her hands over her mouth.

Kaito feels like he’s intruded, and she’s lost deep in her thoughts, so he returns to his bed, and stretches out, waiting for Aoko.

After a few moments, he starts fidgeting. Kaito can be still if he needs to, but he’s not made for stillness.

Mōri still looks like she’s out of it or whatever, slumped in a chair and face pensive, and the kid’s still asleep, and Kaito can’t find his phone. He’s sizing up the table, wondering if it would be worth it to dismantle it for parts, when Aoko comes in.

“Aoko! Finally!” he says. “Get me out of here.”

“Kaito needs to rest!” she says, crossing her arms. “That’s the second time you’ve scared Aoko to death.”

“Hospital food sucks,” Kaito says.

“Aoko knows Kaito didn’t eat anything.”

“Doesn’t stop it from being true. And besides, I’m not actually injured. C’mon Aoko,” Kaito pleads. “Get me out of here! I’m bored!” It’s a threat. A bored Kaito is a terrible thing as she has learned the hard way.

Aoko opens her mouth to say something, but Mōri beats her to it. “But what about,” she says, gesturing helplessly between them.

Kaito shakes his head. “Soulmates?” he says. “Don’t make me laugh. In the end, they don’t mean anything. Nothing but trouble and pain.”

But none of the people in the room see the boy’s keen eyes, open and aware and focused on them.


	2. Shinichi

Shinichi bleeds in the black. His side throbs, pulses with the beat of his heart. He is lost in endless shadows, clawing blindly upwards, unable to escape as the darkness holds him tight.

Then he hears it, quiet at first, but steadily growing stronger.

A voice.

It calls him out of the dark and brings him to full consciousness.

Ran’s? No. Not Ran’s, though her voice fades in and out. The voice she’s speaking with is familiar, too familiar; he knows it but in his daze he doesn't understand. It's musical, the lilt and cadence it as peaks and falls, coupled with the careful enunciation and projection of someone who appears to speak carelessly, but is in fact very mindful, each word chosen carefully.

Yes, Shinichi knows this voice, knows it the way the wind knows the storm, the way trees know the earth and cling to it with their roots.  

Shinichi opens his eyes. The man across from Ran is dark-haired and blue-eyed with a pale and drawn face. He stares. Something about those eyes...

“Soulmates are nothing but trouble and pain,” his soulmate says.

Shinichi agrees, dizzy from blood loss, thoughts clouded from unconsciousness, mind sharp despite it all.

It's not as though knowledge of his soulmate is exactly new to him, though he never thought he would actually find them.

Eight months ago, Shinichi was working a case when he was hit with sharp pain in his lower leg out of nowhere, signs of a fracture. The pain passed quickly and settled into a dull ache. He thought maybe he'd just overworked it in soccer practice or something.

Six months ago, Shinichi had woken up out of a dead sleep with fire on top of his left shoulder and phantom shrapnel digging into his chest with no cause. Then, he had thought soulmate. From the diameter of the wound’s sensation, the intensity of the pain, and how long it had taken for the ache to stop, he'd deduced ballistic trauma from a handgun. He'd also concluded they were probably foreign or lived overseas, considering Japan's low rate of gun related incidents, and that he was likely to never meet them. That had been that. It had been enough.

But this...this is a complication he never expected.

Shinichi has so many questions. First and foremost, why does he know his voice so intimately when his face barely sparks recollection? Also, what business does a teenager from Tokyo have getting shot? How did it happen? Who shot at him? Why didn't he report it?

Because Shinichi had looked out of idle curiosity, the power of Metropolitan Police Headquarters behind him, and had found _nothing._ Which means he hadn't filed a report about it. Which means he has something to hide. Of course, it could have happened on foreign soil, Shinichi's not discounting that. But he doesn't think so. School was in session then, and he looks no older than Shinichi's actual age.

Who is Kuroba Kaito?

That's the heart of it. Who is he?

He's not normal. He can't be. The phantom pain in Shinichi's shoulder had taught him that. Normal teens don't get shot. But Kuroba's attitude is flippant; he doesn't seem like a delinquent that would attract bullets. Shinichi narrows his eyes, studying his profile. He’s pale, lines of tension at the corners of his eyes even as he mouths off to his friend. An act. A performance to match the artifice of his speech.

Shinichi doesn’t doubt his injury is very present in his own appearance, but one has to look closely to find any markers on Kuroba, and they're all physical. His face gives nothing away.

Who is Kuroba Kaito?

What does he have to hide?

Not only that, “Kuroba Kaito” has felt everything since the beginning and revealed to Ran everything Shinichi has been trying to hide.

A dark feeling is crawling under Shinichi’s skin; it’s not panic. Shinichi doesn’t panic, but he does narrow his eyes at the figure in front of him, who is smiling despite all the pain Shinichi knows he must be in, the pain that's still throttling Shinichi's breath, even though he has a morphine drip.

“Don’t you think that’s a little harsh, Bakaito!” his friend says, incensed.

“Nope!” he says, easy. Kuroba takes a step, arms behind his head, and then he falls to the floor like a marionette with its strings cut, limbs splayed and head hitting the ground with an audible thump.

Nothing could have caused his collapse. Shinichi knows this for fact. No pain, and the dizziness is manageable.

Shinichi takes a deep breath, then forces himself up, brutal pain flaring in his side as he does. He pushes through it anyway, needing to see what is going on, and that's when Kuroba lets out a genuine cry and curls up, clutching at his side.

“Kuroba-san!” Ran gasps, her back to Shinichi, reaching out her hand, wanting to help, but staying back as his companion rushes to his side, shaking him from what Shinichi can see by the movement of her shoulders.

“Kaito!” Aoko calls his name with an urgency that grips at Shinichi's heart.

Shinichi scrutinizes Kuroba as he pushes himself to his feet, arms trembling from the exertion. He wonders what he had been trying to pull. Sympathy from his friend?

“Not so loud, Aoko!” he complains, clutching at his side. Then he pauses. As if he feels his focus, his eyes meet Shinichi's, and Shinichi cannot read them. He stares at Shinichi a long moment, holding his gaze, calculating. Something about it makes Shinichi's hackles rise as Kuroba narrows his eyes, like he's offered a challenge, and Shinichi has failed to meet it.

Dismissed. Unworthy.

The rejection hurts more than it should.

“You just fell over, Kaito!” Aoko says, and the moment is gone as Kuroba turns his head.

“Well yeah, that's kind of obvious. I'm fine,” he says, waving his hand.

“You're not!” Aoko says. “You need to get back into bed right now, or so help Aoko—”

“Whatever. I'm out of here,” he says, stomping to the door and throwing it open, walking out.

“You need to get back in bed!” Aoko says, following him, her face growing red, “Don't make Aoko get a doctor!”

“Psssh!” Kuroba says. “Too late. I'm checking out of this dump.”

“Kuroba-san, wait!” Ran says, following them into the hall. “I need to talk to you! Wait! Please!”

It leaves Shinichi alone with his pain in his hospital room, somewhat bewildered by the events that have just transpired, not wanting to leave Ran alone with Kuroba, but unable to leave the bed.

He doesn't have long to contemplate them before his door slams open again with a loud boom, making him flinch.

Hattori enters alone, a bouquet of flowers slung over his shoulder like a sword, and Shinichi is a little taken aback with the strength of his relief.

“I'm not dead yet,” he grumbles, gesturing at the flowers, more appropriate for a funeral than a get-well.

“Yeah, I know,” Hattori says. “You look like death warmed over, though.”

“Astute observation,” Shinichi says.

Hattori ignores his attitude. “Anyway, I brought 'em so we could talk alone, but it looks like Kazuha ditched me anyway ‘cause Nee-chan was talkin’ pretty heavy to some strange girl with wavy hair.”

Aoko. “Just a girl?” Shinichi asks. “Nobody else with her?”

“No one 'cept Nee-chan. Why? Should there be?”

“Just my soulmate,” Shinichi mutters, rubbing at his face.

“No kiddin?’ A soulmate?” Hattori says, snickering.

“Shut up,” Shinichi says with more bite than he intends.

Hattori sobers but doesn’t take offense at Shinichi's foul mood. “I ain't ever come across a case with 'em. Not like you. Thought it was a myth, honestly.”

“Soulmates are real,” Shinichi says. “Just rare. Confirmation bias. You don’t force facts to fit hypotheses.”

“Yeah, yeah. No need to lecture me, I can see that now, K-Conan-kun,” Hattori says, finally irritated.

“‘Kuroba Kaito’ was shot six months ago,” Shinichi says, gripping the affected shoulder. “I felt it. I'm proof it's not impossible to be shot with a pistol in Japan, but—”

“It's highly unlikely,” Hattori finishes.

“Yeah. I ran it through all of Tokyo. Nothing.” He wraps his arms around himself. “Hattori, something's off.”

“Must be, to have you so unsettled.” Hattori walks closer to the hospital bed.

“If it happened here, there should be a record of it. There's not. But elsewhere...”

“You want me to see what I can dig up?”

Shinichi nods.

“Yeah, I can do that, poke around, see what I can find in Osaka and elsewhere,” Hattori says.

Shinichi lists to the side.

“Oi, what's that look for?”

Shinichi is losing the fight with that dark feeling, breath coming shorter, pain flaring hot in his side. He hunches in on himself, clutching at it.

“Hey, talk to me, Ku-onan-kun!” Hattori says. “You should lay back down.” He sets the flowers on the bed, leans over, presses him back down and rubs at Shinichi's chest, hand slipping under the fabric to massage up and down his sternum. His hands are huge in comparison; it's a short trip. “Easy does it, there you go. Need me to get someone?”

“I'm fine!” His touch grounds Shinichi, keeps him in consciousness.

“If you say so,” Hattori says, unbelieving, but drops it anyway.

Shinichi is grateful, but he doesn't say thank you. His touch helps to anchor him by distraction, to keep him in the now instead of lost in the pain. He wants to pass out, but he can't. Not yet.

“Hattori,” Shinichi says, grabbing hold of his arm. “Ran knows. About me.”

“What?”

“He told her. He felt the pain of my ‘condition,’ and he told her.”

“He did, huh?” Shinichi nods.

“Yeah. She suspected before, but she knows now. Hattori, I don't want her getting hurt. If they go after her because of me…”

“Well, that's what we're here for, right?” Hattori says, ruffling Shinichi's hair. “Besides, they don’t have to know she knows.”

“Yeah. I just—Maybe Professor Agasa was right.”

“‘Bout them hurtin' everyone that may find out?” Hattori asks.

“Yeah. Hattori, it's just—” Shinichi takes a deep shuddering breath. “I don't want to lie to her anymore, but what if they do come after her?”

“Then we’ll be ready for ‘em,” Hattori says. “You've been wantin’ to tell her anyway.”

“Hattori, I don't know what to do,” Shinichi says. He’s tired of acting like he knows all the answers. Normally, he can see ten or twelve moves ahead, but right now...he's just tired. “I don't know what to do about this or any of it!” So very tired.

Ran knows, and he hasn't had time to learn his soulmate, come to any conclusions about who he is or his motives. Hasn’t had, and probably won’t have the opportunity. All Shinichi knows is that Kuroba's the reason Ran knows, he's covering up a shooting, and lying. That's enough to plant a seed of resentment to go along with the doubt and suspicion.

Most of what Shinichi knows comes from cases that had involved soulmates.

As rare as it is, the soulmate link is only a connection. A possibility. It is up to the people that are linked to make something of it, and right now Shinichi doesn't want anything to do with him. It hurts that the other half of his soul rejected him, but it's for the best: Shinichi cannot take any chances under any circumstances. It Kuroba hadn't rejected him first, Shinichi would have done it anyway. He knows his voice, but can't place it with his face. That alone makes him dangerous. Even if he does turn out to be harmless, he doesn't need to be involved in Shinichi's trouble. What the Black Organisation would do to Kuroba if they knew Shinichi was still alive—

Mutual pain would just be the beginning.

“And that's okay, Kudō,” Hattori says, putting a heavy hand on Shinichi's shoulder. “You don't have to know all the answers. We'll figure it out.”

Shinichi's throat feels tight, and his head is spinning, and he mutters, “I wish it had been you instead.” If it couldn't be Ran, Hattori is—well, he trusts him, anyway.

Hattori's eyes widen, and he opens his mouth to speak when the door swings open. Kazuha comes in, but Ran's not with her, it's Aoko. Shinichi sags in disappointment. As hesitant as he is about being around Ran right now, he’d much rather have her near.

Hattori gives his shoulder a soft squeeze. “Where's Nee-chan?” he asks Kazuha.

“She went to go chase down that guy,” Kazuha says, shaking her head. “I don't think I've ever seen Ran-chan so angry.”

Hattori tilts his head at Aoko. “Who’re you?”

“Ah, sorry!” Aoko bows shallowly towards Shinichi. “Nakamori Aoko. Aoko wanted to apologize for Kaito's behavior! He's an idiot like that sometimes, but he means well.”

“Sure could have fooled me,” Hattori says.

“What do you know about it?” Aoko asks, hands on her hips. “You weren't here!”

The noise cuts through his head, spiking in a massive migraine. “Don’t,” Shinichi says, and his voice comes out much weaker than he intends. He falls back against his pillow, and Hattori’s grip tightens. “Don’t,” he repeats, unable to put his thoughts in cogent order. He takes a deep rattling breath. “...You don't have to apologize for him,” Shinichi says finally. He's so tired. So, so tired. His eyes close despite himself.

“Kaito's not a bad person,” she repeats.

Shinichi takes another deep breath, and opens his eyes. It’s a struggle. They feel like thick iron doors. “What’s he like?”

“What?” Hattori says.

“What?” Aoko asks.

“I’d like to know more about him, if that’s—” another deep breath. “If that’s all right.” Understanding dawns on Hattori’s face, and he looks towards Kazuha and the door. Shinichi nods, barely perceptible.

“Of course!” Aoko says. “You’re his soulmate, so you have the right to know.”

That’s...not how it works. But if it gets him the information he needs, Shinichi doesn’t really care.

“Kazuha, you mind runnin’ down to the vending machines with me and gettin’ some cans of cold coffee?” Hattori asks.

“No, but I know you’re gonna slip one of ‘em to Conan-kun!” Kazuha grabs hold of his sleeve.

“What? No!” they bicker and squabble as she pulls him out the door, and Hattori looks back and catches Shinichi’s eye before leaving him alone with Aoko.

“Nakamori-san,” Shinichi begins, then falls silent.

“You can call Aoko ‘nee-chan’ if you’d like,” she offers after a moment, sitting down.  “Is Conan-kun all right?”

Shinichi nods. “I’m surprised you’re not with him right now, Aoko-nee-chan,” Shinichi says.

She inches forward in her chair, fiddling with the edge of Shinichi's sheet, taking a moment to gather her thoughts. “Kaito likes to be independent,” she says. “Sometimes when he's acting bull-headed, it's easier to help him afterwards than try to stop him.” She bites her lip. “You must be in a lot of pain.”

“Just a little,” Shinichi says.

“You’re taking this really well.”

“I may be young, but that doesn't mean I'm weak or helpless,” Shinichi says.

“Aoko thinks she sees why you’re matched now,” she says, and the relief is stark on her face.

“I don't,” Shinichi says.

“Well, Kaito also acts like a big kid sometimes, so it makes sense that you'd be the more mature one!” She laughs, but it sounds forced.

Shinichi's brow furrows. “Is he really that bad?” Shinichi asks.

She shakes her head. “Aoko thinks he does it to remember what it was like before his father died.”

“His father...died?”

“In an accident when he wasn't much older than you. As his childhood friend, Aoko was there, it was awful. Kaito's father was a magician. Not long before, they had a talk about keeping a 'poker face,’ and sometimes Aoko thinks Kaito takes it too close to heart to keep him close.”

“So you're saying he keeps up a ‘poker face’ to hide what he's really feeling?” It could explain some of the inconsistencies, but not him refusing to report an injury. “That’s what he was doing, Aoko-nee-chan? When he said I was nothing but a pain?”

Aoko nods. “Kaito has always liked to tease Aoko, but never when it really counts. Kaito’s probably feeling surprised and maybe a little confused, since soulmates are so rare.”

That's just an excuse, and a poor one at that. “What about my feelings?” And maybe his voice comes out a bit petulant, but honestly. “Soulmates are supposed to be special,” he says. “And mine hates me.” He looks away. Shinichi might be playing it up a little too much, but as Aoko’s eyes soften, and glimmer with tears, whatever works.

“He doesn’t hate you,” Aoko says. “Give him time.”

“It’s not my fault I was hurt,” Shinichi says. “What about the time he hurt me? It’s unfair.” Shinichi’s side throbs, and it’s becoming more than he can stand. He has to fight to regulate his breathing and keep it even so as not to alarm Aoko. He still needs information.  

“He..hurt you? When?”

Shinichi tells her the date, and a shift comes over her face, and she bites her lip. It’s telling then, the way Kuroba’s words to Ran were telling. “Aoko-nee-chan? he prompts.

She startles. “Oh, it explains the reason he didn't come to Aoko's birthday party, if only he'd just _said_ something!”

“You didn't know?”

She lets out a sigh. “The truth is, Kaito's hiding a lot from Aoko these days. If he was hurt that badly, enough for you to feel it—why didn't he say anything?”

“Well, you mentioned you were childhood friends. Maybe he didn't want you to worry.” Shinichi says. For the first time, Shinichi feels something of a kinship to Kuroba, and a glimpse as to maybe why they are soulmates. He's still suspicious as all hell, but one can almost always determine the quality of a person by the quality of their friends, and Aoko seems loyal, if also a little childish, what with her cutesy speech like she's an idol or something. She reminds him of Ran, the way she worries. The way she cares.

A young nurse bursts in through the door, her clothes rumpled and her hair half out of its tail, covering one ear. She strides over to the bed, taking Shinichi’s vitals and tsking before leveling a hard stare at Aoko. “All right, visiting hours are over, my patient needs his rest.” The nurse looks like she needs rest, too, pale and overworked. And there’s at least another thirty minutes left of visiting time now that he’s out of critical care, but Shinichi admits he really isn’t feeling it.

“But—” Aoko tries to protest.

“No no no he needs peace and quiet to help with the healing, and he can’t do that with you agitating him, now shoo, young miss,” she says, guiding her out of the door and closing it behind her.

“And you,” she scolds him. “You need to learn your limits, kid.” She puts her hand on his forehead, ostensibly feeling for a fever. It’s oddly calloused for a nurse’s hand, they’re in the wrong places. It’s warm though, and soothing, and it makes the aching chasm inside him settle just a little. 

Shinichi closes his eyes, too out of it to think about it anymore. Just as he slips away, he hears, “Good thing you have me looking out for you, little detective.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for the comments! I did not mean for this to take an additional year and a half. Sadly, life and motivation had other plans. I was blocked on it for a long time because two chapters just wasn't enough for a satisfying conclusion for what I had in mind, so I expanded it. It's finally complete, the other chapters are just waiting for final revisions, so they should be posted on a consistent basis. Key word being 'should.' No guarantees if I have another week like the last one :')
> 
> Yes, I'm aware in Blue Birthday, the shot just glanced off the gem, but for the purposes of this fic, the bullet hit the edge and ricocheted into his shoulder.


	3. Kaito 1½ | Shinichi 1½

Perhaps it is not such a nice thing, sneaking back into the hospital in the dead of night days after being discharged against medical advice. Kaito had not planned on it at all. But something about Mōri’s reaction had made him pause, the talk with the Kansai detective had cinched it, and as constantly surrounded by visitors as the little detective is, it makes talking to him alone the realm of fantasy.

So Kaito is making his own opportunity. And he has never claimed to be nice. Nice people don’t plant listening devices on the underside of hospital beds. (And no, Kaito is not a complete monster with a disregard for electromagnetic interference on medical devices, it is low-power, low impact, and he’d placed it as far from any important equipment as possible)

His side still throbs, hindering his movements as he ghosts through the hospital, but at this point he does not care. He hadn’t let it stop him before, and he isn’t going to let it stop him now. Pain can be compartmentalized, disregarded, ignored.

Something about this is very, very wrong. The conversation he had overheard—not the discussion about him, that had been anticipated—the secrets this kid shares with that other detective...it’s connected to his pain.

Have people been hurting him out of the sight of that moron and his daughter? Kaito grits his teeth. No wonder the kid had turned out like he had.

And yet, that other detective had also called him Kudō. Edogawa-kun must be an alias. But the only information he’d found on that name in relation to the kid had been a teenager, Kudō Shinichi. They looked alike. Scarily so. From what he found, the clips he’d watched, they were both detectives, with the same methodology, which was even more intriguing, and he couldn’t find any pictures of them together. Which made him wonder...but no. Akako was the only person he’d ever met like that. He tilted his head. It would explain his maturity relative to his age, but even then how—

The boy is asleep as he enters his hospital room. Kaito goes to shake him, but the expression on his face makes him pause. It seems he cannot get any peace, even in sleep: he’s frowning, his face pinched like he’s in pain. He’s clutching at the sheets with one hand, shivering. He’s drawn by how fragile he looks, so different from the near palpable personality he carries while he is awake.

Kaito should wake him so they can talk properly. Instead, he takes the opportunity to study him.

So this is his soulmate. The littlest detective. Twice they’ve met now, three times if one counts their awakening in this hospital room, and while he has been an interesting opponent, Kaito wonders just at the criteria for soulmates. Wonders how such a young boy gets into so much trouble, and why it just had to be Kaito.

Kaito would ask why the gods deemed fit they share a soul, but then, that night on the rooftop had been memorable, hadn’t it? The lodge, even more so.

What a kid. The corner of his lip twists. It’s a wonder their meeting slipped his mind, but he’s had a lot on his mind lately.

He places his hand on his forehead again. Still warm and a little feverish. He smooths the lines from his forehead, erases the pinched look from his face. Once again, he seems to ease at Kaito’s touch, his hands loosening from the sheets and falling flat.   

What a kid.

So the nature of the soulmate bond is to be one of rivalry, then. Soulmates aren't dependent on age, or location, or sex. They could be anyone, anywhere. All it means is their bond is significant in some way, and they’re likely to meet at least once. And they had. On a roof, once. Again on a magician’s retreat.

Edogawa Conan. How he’d worked around the limitations of his age had been something else. So clever with misdirection he could almost be a magician himself.  And yet that intelligence, that maturity, Kaito's knowledge of more than stage magic, the _similarities_...

Kaito tugs at the speaker still in his ear. He'd left it on to listen but hadn't heard anything damning since that first day. Still, Kaito has a whole host of things he wants to ask. Starting with the creepy ventriloquist puppet act.

The sound of the door opening has Kaito shrinking into the shadows in the corner of the room, disappearing behind the privacy curtain of the other bed.

Ah, it appears he is not the only one here after visiting hours.

He has a good view of the boy’s bed, but unless they shine a light this way, it should be difficult to see him, camouflaged as he is by the curtain.

It swings open wider, and it’s a little girl around the kid’s age with a severe expression. She's not supposed to be here either, but the boy's hospital ward is hardly secured. She looks from side to side, checking, but she does not see Kaito.

He watches as she watches his sleeping form for a long time, her face pensive and her hands fists at her side.

Such a dark expression for such a young girl. She pulls out a tiny revolver from a small handbag, and Kaito’s first instinct is to reveal himself. But something makes him still instead. It’s a snubnosed barrel, a Colt Detective Special, like the HQ old issue, but there’s something off about the hammer and chamber.

He watches, and still she does nothing, pistol at her side. Then she takes a deep breath, and shakes him carefully.

The boy wakes slowly, eyes half-lidded, but he jerks up as soon as soon as he spots her, gun in both hands, muzzle pointed at his face.

“This black blood still flows deep within me, staining everything,” she says. “I can’t hide it any longer.”

What in the hell?

Her eyes are cold, her face impassive. The kid’s got a good poker face, but he’s sweating, drowning in black fear, literally scared half to death. Kaito feels his heart pick up, his blood pounding in his ears as his side throbs. The Soulmate Echo at work. Life-threatening injuries are generally the cause, but extreme cases of acute stress response can rarely serve as the catalyst as the body produces epinephrine and other hormones in reaction to pain or severe emotional stimulus such as fear.

“They found me.” She laughs bitterly. “Those men in black. Pisco told them before he died. They know the apotoxin’s rare side effect. it didn't take them long to make the connection. But they’ll let me live. They want me back to continue work on it, you see, but it did come with a condition.”

“You’re here to silence me,” Edogawa says. “So I won’t talk about you or the organization.”

What in the hell is wrong with these kids?

“Smart boy.” She gestures at him with the gun.

“You're not like this.”

She shrugs. “You know how they are.”

“What about the professor?” he says, tension lacing his tone.

“He’ll live. In exchange for my cooperation, you see. They’re holding him hostage. But your parents, your Osakan friend...they die tomorrow. But since we’re friends, I’m allowing you the kindness to die first so you won’t have to mourn them.”

“Friends?” he says. His panic has faded. His voice is empty, free from any anger, or fear. Nothing left but the cold pain of betrayal.  

The girl’s finger twitches on the trigger; the boy closes his eyes.

-

Shinichi waits for the bullet to hit.

A loud pop and a puff of smoke.

A voice that sounds vaguely familiar. “That, I believe, is _enough_.” The tone is cold enough to burn.

Shinichi opens his eyes to see Kuroba standing in front of the hospital bed, in dark clothing and a black ball cap low over his face. His hand is on the gun, it's pointing up, unfired. His blue eyes are ice cold, his eyes deadly. Haibara is stock still in his arms, eyes wide, the hand with the gun pointing up at the ceiling as the he squeezes her wrist and divests her of it quickly.

He’d never expected she’d do this, he’d been so sure—

Kuroba’s standing in front of Shinichi, holding Haibara back like some kind of protective spirit. Where did he even come from?  

“What could be the reason for such a thing, I wonder?” he asks. The voice is a little more formal, much less petulant; Shinichi had known his personality from earlier had been an act, but to this extent? Haibara trembles, unable to speak from fear. Why is the cadence of that voice so familiar? He _knows_ he’s heard it somewhere now; it’s the same exact syntactic construction, the same exact pitch, the same exact tone.

Kuroba snaps his fingers, and Haibara’s wrists are tied behind her back with a rope, and she's placed on the empty bed across from Shinichi in the time it takes him to blink. Shinichi's jaw drops. Such sleight of hand. Some distant part of him realizes he must be a magician like his father.

Haibara’s mouth moves, and Shinichi can just make out ‘Ve—’ before the rest is lost as Kuroba brings out an aerosol can and gasses her. She falls over on the bed, limp. With another snap, her bindings are gone like they never existed.

Kuroba reaches under the bed, pulls out an elegantly small surveillance bug, tugs the wire out of his ear and lets it dangle down his shoulder. He pockets it, turns back to Shinichi, and with a resigned sigh, says, “You are so much trouble.”

Shinichi sits there dumbly, adrenaline making him shake, mind still lost in analysis of what just happened. Why shake him? Why wake him when she could have killed him while he was asleep? She’d followed him into that premiere well enough. Kuroba holds out his arms, palms outspread, and gestures to himself. Shinichi blinks.

When Shinichi doesn’t respond, Kuroba rolls his eyes and grabs him, pulling him against his chest, supporting him with one arm while opening the other with his free hand. Kuroba feels safe. Calming. They're halfway out the window before Shinichi comes to himself and starts struggling.

“Could you—” Grunt of pain, “—Not, while we—Ow! Hey!” Shinichi aims for his groin but hits his thigh, only for them to fall out of the window. Shinichi might not have thought this through all the way. He closes his eyes and clings to Kuroba as his stomach swoops, only to find that they’ve stopped (?) falling. They're dangling upside down outside the hospital window.

He looks down (up) to find exasperation on Kuroba's face, though he's mostly getting a good look at his chin. He's cradled to his chest, and his head is next to his pounding heart. It feels like it's beating a tattoo on his soul. He'd protected them from impact against the side of the building, and as he shifts to look up (down) he sees Kuroba's leg tangled in a length of rope. It's the only thing keeping them from falling the rest of the way down.

“Do you really have that much of a death wish?” Kuroba asks as he hooks his other leg over the window.

“You're kidnapping me!” Shinichi says.

“I'm rescuing you!” he says childishly like Shinichi is the unreasonable one.

Somehow, that makes his ire rise. “Besides, what kind of creep just goes around planting bugs and listening in on people? I don't need a stalker for a soulmate.”

“I don't know, maybe the kind of creep that _just saved your life?_ You could be a little more grateful!” Kuroba lets go to cross his arms, leaving Shinichi clinging to him several stories above the ground.

Shinichi tightens his grip and holds onto him like a monkey. Shinichi's not afraid of heights but he's still out of it thanks to pain and medication and this is a little much. He doesn't trust his coordination at the moment. “Fine! Thank you! Now will you let me go?”

“If I do that, you'll fall. Personally, I don't want you dead, but I'm starting to wonder about you.” He still has his arms crossed

Shinichi grits his teeth.

“So do I have your permission to remove you to somewhere safer, Edogawa-sama?” Kuroba asks. “I suggest you decide quickly before she wakes.”

“For now,” Shinichi says. “Later's still under discussion.”

“Hold on, kid,” Kuroba says, supporting him with one arm before twisting and maneuvering himself upright in one smooth motion.

Somehow it’s easy for Shinichi to loop his arms around his neck and bury his face into his chest. It’s warm. And Shinichi realizes, even while they were falling, Kuroba kept him from twisting his side and injuring it further. He’s not sure what to do with the information.

Once they're back upright, Kuroba jerks the rope and it comes untied, and he secrets it away.

He climbs freehanded to the top of the roof. When he's done, he collapses against the lip of the wall, out of sight of both the helipad and any roof access doors.

The first thing Shinichi does is scramble away. Kuroba rolls his eyes.

“I need answers,” Kuroba says.  He examines the pistol he pilfered from Haibara, hefting it, checking its weight with one hand. “Such heavy words were exchanged. And the content, too. Men in black, a conspiracy, assassination…” He spins the pistol around his index finger before snapping and making it disappear. “A drug with a ‘rare side effect.’”

“‘Soulmates?’” Shinichi quotes. “‘In the end, they don’t mean anything but trouble and pain.’ You made your position very clear.” He’s suddenly tired, ache growing in his side from all the movement. It's healing but it still hurts.

“Tell me, who are you really?” His eyes flicker over to Shinichi. “I am your soulmate, don't I have a right to know?”

The audacity of his words helps Shinichi find his voice. “No. You don't have a right to know. Just because you experienced my pain doesn't make it yours. You don't deserve any answers just because the universe decided we should share pain.”

“It did get the fact you're a pain right,” Kuroba says. He pulls out the gun, spins it around by the trigger, and fires up.  

A pop, and flowers emerge from the barrel.

“Thought so,” he murmurs. “It seems I was correct, but I had thought it still better to remove you.”  

Haibara was only trying to scare him, though he can only guess at her reasons. “Haibara was only testing my reactions. To see what I would do in this situation.” Relief floods him, and he sags back against the rough roof.

“Why?” Kuroba asks.

“Hey, hey. Shouldn't I be asking you that?” Shinichi asks. “Where did you get shot, why did you hide it, and who are you, really? 'I'm your soulmate, don't I have the right to know?'”

Kuroba hmms. “The thing about Pandora's box, kid, is that once it's open, it cannot be closed again. I already know the shape of your mysteries. Are you so sure you want to know the shape of mine?”

“Do you, now?” Shinichi asks, crossing his arms.

“You're in hiding. From people aren't afraid to kill you or the ones you love in order to get what they want. Been there, done that. My father's death was no accident, you're not exactly unique. Tell me, Kudō, how knowing about your situation will make mine any worse than it already is.”

Shinichi freezes at the sound of his name. It’s only for a moment, but it’s clear from Kuroba’s smirk he’d caught it. Damn. “Scope,” Shinichi says, but his mind is racing. That only answered the why, and he had heard his conversation with Hattori. Listening in, when he had no damn right to.

Kuroba waggles his finger at him. “Nuh uh uh, try again, little detective. I fear you’ve yet to give me a good reason.”

An alarm is going off inside Shinichi's head as the facts and the pieces start falling into place. The voice and pattern of the words. The acrobatics and prestidigitation. The age.

There's absolutely no way he is _him._

It's just Shinichi's luck. He grins out of shock, incredulous and disbelieving.

No way.

“The little miss also had this on her,” Kuroba says, a pill case in hand. He pops it open and holds out a little red and white pill between his thumb and forefinger. “This wouldn't happen to be the drug of which you are speaking of, would it?”

The stealing. Magicians have nimble fingers. Shinichi sits up, pain washing through his side from the quick movement and making him feel dizzy; the person in front of him flinches. He crawls over to look at his face, under the brim of the wrong kind of hat.  

Kuroba—the Kaitō Kid—pulls the apotoxin out of his reach, but that isn’t what Shinichi is after. He crawls over, flops back on his lap, looks up.

Yup, same jawline. Shinichi laughs. Okay, the apotoxin is still a problem, and he doesn't know why Haibara was carrying it around with her but that can be handled later.

“Are you okay?” Kuroba asks, and that just makes Shinichi laugh harder.

Shinichi can't manage to say anything between peals of laughter, and so he rests his head on his shin, matching the moon's grin.

Kuroba is watching him strangely.  “Are you?” he ventures again.

“You've already called me Kudō once. Haven't you put it all together?” he asks. Shinichi’s unwilling to move. Strange, since all through that fiasco he was desperately trying to escape. But he’s comfortable and he knows his motives, now. Maybe that makes all the difference.

“Edogawa is an alias and Kudō’s your real name?” Kuroba asks, unsure.

“That's a question. You seemed so sure about ‘the shape of my mysteries,’” Shinichi says, still grinning.

“You too are being pursued by men in black? And the little miss is connected to them?” he asks.

“‘Too?’ Shinichi says sharply, grin falling for the moment. “They're the ones that killed your father?” The gap between Kid's appearances.

Kuroba nods.

Of course. It all makes sense now, especially the gunshot. Another assassination attempt. “Well. Perhaps we do have more in common than I thought. And while Haibara was just trying to scare me, I do,” he pauses. “I do want to thank you. For kidnapping me. Or whatever.”

“Will wonders never cease?” Kuroba says. “You actually thanking me.” He’s grinning now, down at him, and it just makes his resemblance to phantom thief Kid more striking. How hadn’t he seen it before?

“Heh. Now you're just acting like a brat.” He reaches up and pokes Kuroba in the chest. “Accept apologies gracefully, idiot.” He pokes him after every word. Kuroba knocks his hand away, rubbing at his chest.

“That was an apology?” Kuroba asks, incredulous.

“The shape of one,” he says, cheeky. Then his smile falls. He sits up, flinching with Kuroba mirroring it, and crosses his arms. “We have a lot of things to discuss, Kuroba.”

“So it seems.”

 


End file.
